


Fearless

by OpalizedFossil



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Discussions of death, F/M, Stranded AU, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 12:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpalizedFossil/pseuds/OpalizedFossil
Summary: A collision between the Star Skipper and the Destiny Destroyer strands Captain Lars with a cracked and cranky Emerald on the jungle moon.





	Fearless

**Author's Note:**

> For [peacefulteatime](http://www.peacefulteatime.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!

The Star Skipper collides with the Destiny Destroyer and shatters into a million metallic pieces on impact, the windshield cracking and sending staticky fissures through the digital displays, the engine sparking and smoking as the small vessel descends into the darkness of outer space to finally crash on the surface of some forgotten colony, now empty and abandoned.

The crash is dizzying, nauseating, terrifying, but Lars isn’t hurt. He lays prone on the cracked windshield, ejected from the pilot’s seat, as he slowly regains consciousness, blinking bleariness from his eyes and gazing dazedly up at the starry night sky, streams of blackish smoke still coming down around him, amid a sea of fiery metallic shards that are all that is left of his makeshift fighter jet.

Slowly, Lars sits upright - then immediately lays back down when his head starts to spin. His entire body aches, bruised but not broken, thanks in no small part to his apparent immortality and inability to be seriously wounded. The back of his head feels especially tender, but, after several more minutes, he’s able to heave himself upright and not feel lightheaded. He rubs at the back of his neck and frowns unhappily as he looks around and finally realizes the severity of his situation.

So, now he’s stranded, on some faraway planet that resembles a rainforest, surrounded on all sides by towering tropical trees and overgrown ferns five times the size of the ones on earth, all smelling fragrantly of what he can only describe as rotten fruit, sickly sweet and awful. It’s nighttime, the sky full of stars but no discernible moon, just bright enough for him to scarcely see three feet in front of him, the darkness no doubt concealing many dangers. He has no way to contact his ship, still safely aboard the Sun Incinerator, somewhere up above him in the infinity of space, the Star Skipper smashed beyond repair. He has no supplies, either, not even a knife or a fire starter.

“Great,” Lars grumbles as he slowly staggers to his feet, holding his hands out to either side to balance himself, still wobbly from the collision, “Fucking perfect!”

And then he hears the explosion, his vision flashing blindingly white as something erupts like a fireball into the planet’s atmosphere, searing brightly through the sky to collide with the colony’s surface closeby, where it hits with a deafening boom. Lars reflexively raises a hand to shield his eyes, squinting at the object as it falls, and realizes that whatever it is, it’s quite large.

His heart skips a very slow beat. The Sun Incinerator, he thinks, shot down without its rogue captain to guide it after Emerald had eliminated him. He’s woozy and unstable from the crash, but, as quickly as he can, he runs after the fallen object, guided by the huge stream of smoke coming up from its crash site, until he comes to the edge of what he first thinks is a cliff, but quickly realizes is the outer edge of the massive crater left by the fallen ship.

It isn’t the Sun Incinerator.

The Destiny Destroyer - or at least, the better half of it - lies in ruin in the crater, scattered shards of metal and engine burning bright green in the night while the rest of the ship smokes and smolders. It’s destroyed, as beyond repair as his own Star Skipper.

Lars stands on the edge of the crater and stares at the fallen ship in shock. He had collided with the Destiny Destroyer after one of its cannons had fired and hit the Star Skipper, sending him spiraling out of control, but under no circumstances could his tiny fighter jet have dealt such extreme damage to the massive ship. So, what happened?

The longer he stares, the more he realizes that, amongst the wreckage, there’s one shadowy shape very unlike the others, not a fragment of sharp metal or crushed broken machinery or even a displaced piece of furniture. He squints, vision still slightly hazy, and realizes with a start that it’s Emerald. She’s on her side, either knocked unconscious or in shock, and she isn’t moving.

He should leave. If he’s stranded here with her, it won’t take her long to get up and realize that, not far from the crash site, there’s the wreckage of his own vessel and, once she realizes he’s here, she’ll come after him. Aboard the Sun Incinerator, there was no for him to fear her. He had both the advantage of the ship’s superior speed and weaponry and the knowledge that it had sentimental value to her and she wouldn’t dare destroy it. But, out here, stranded on this strange jungle moon, he doesn’t know how he could possibly defend himself if he ran into her. She’s bigger, stronger, faster, superior by design. If it came to a physical confrontation, he would stand no chance against her. At least if he left now, he would have a head start.

But, as he turns to leave, he hears her cough. He glances back over his shoulder and sees her shift onto her stomach, struggling to push herself up on her elbows and whimpering pitifully as if in pain, and knows in his heart that he can’t leave her. Emerald had been terrible. She had been on his ass for weeks, if not months, and she had threatened him countless times. But, he had deserved it; it was her beloved vessel he had stolen, it was her gem he had put on the line, it was her he had hurt. And, not so very long ago, he had been terrible, too. She doesn’t deserve this.

Reluctantly, Lars searches for somewhere to enter the crater, eventually settling for slouching down and sliding unceremoniously down into it, then approaches her cautiously. Emerald still hasn’t gotten up, raising up on her elbows, wobbling, and falling flat on her face in front of him. Even in his much smaller vessel (and much more fragile organic form, however enhanced by rose quartz magic it might be), he hadn’t been seriously injured in the crash, so he can’t imagine that she’s this severely wounded. Maybe she’s just being dramatic.

But then, she raises her head up and the starlight catches silver on her gem and he finally sees the cause of her weakness.

She’s cracked.

Lars’ resolve falters as he slowly steps towards her, kneeling a few feet away, a calculated distance from her reach. “Emerald…?”

Emerald’s gaze snaps up to meet his, her one green eye instantly glinting and her lips drawing back in an unsavory snarl. “You!”

She scrambles to reach him, wholeheartedly meaning to strangle him, but only succeeds in falling flat on her face again, clawing feebly at two handfuls of dirt. Lars shakes his head, stands up, and walks over to her. “Shh...I’m not going to hurt you. Stay calm.”

Emerald lifts her head and spits at him. “Fuck off!”

Lars frowns. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help, Off-Color!” she snarls, hoisting herself onto her elbows again, limbs trembling weakly.

Lars catches her before she falls and slowly, wearily heaves her to her feet, hooking an arm around her waist to stop her from stumbling as her form glitches violently like a fit of static on a television screen. “You, uh, definitely need my help.”

“Unhand me!” Emerald screeches, her unease sending her physical form into another wave of static. This time, her one eye rolls in her eye as her form restabilizes, her lips parting in a hazy look as she slowly comes to the realization, clawed fingers slowly dragging over her gem to confirm it.

This time, she doesn’t screech, she doesn’t snarl, she barely speaks. It comes out in a hushed whisper, the way someone only speaks when they’re really and truly afraid. “I’m cracked.”

“Yeah…” Lars tightens his arm around her waist. “C’mon, let’s find somewhere safe to sit down. You must be feeling pretty scared.”  
“I am not scared,” Emerald retorts, her voice jumping back up to its usual screechy volume, “Emeralds don’t feel fear!”

“Sure,” Lars agrees, not wanting to stress her more, slowly guiding her to the edge of the crater. It’s a staggering six feet high, and he hardly thinks dragging her up it is a good idea or one she wouldn’t adamantly protest to, so he chuffs in frustration and looks for shelter elsewhere, eventually finding a curved, upright piece of metal from the ship and sitting her down underneath it. To his surprise, she goes willingly.

“There,” he tells her, “It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do for now. Did you have anything on the ship that might help us? A communicator, maybe?”

Emerald doesn’t look at him, staring vacantly at the crash site and the remains of the Destiny Destroyer. Oh, she’s dead. First, the Sun Incinerator had been stolen - by rebels, no less. Now, she had crashed an equally valuable vessel. When the Diamonds find out, there will be no pleading her case.

“Emerald?” Lars’ voice returns her to the present moment and, blinking, she replies, “No. It’s the back end of the ship, you off-colored idiot.”

Lars tries to ignore the insult. “The back end? What was the captain doing in the back end of the ship in the middle of a conflict, huh?”

“You caught the engines on fire when you crashed into us,” she replies, “and they exploded when I went to extinguish them.”

“And there wasn’t a single person on the ship that could’ve extinguished them for you?” Lars prompts incredulously, cocking a brow.

“No,” she tells him, “I was alone.”

“Since when does the great and powerful Admiral Emerald go anywhere without a single citrine?” he scoffs.

“I was alone,” Emerald repeats, then doesn’t say another word. She looks out at the wreckage again. Her form glitches violently.

“Just wait here,” Lars tells her, already walking away, “I’m going to go find us some firewood or something.”  
Emerald watches him leave, then shakes her head. “And attract every beast in the jungle. Idiot.”

“I heard that!” Lars calls back at her, but he doesn’t stop to argue with her. He already knows it’s pointless, so he leaves her be, finding somewhere where the crater around the crash site is just low enough for him to climb up and venturing off to the jungle’s edge to look for firewood. What he finds is disappointingly damp, but he has to make it work, afraid to venture farther into the trees without a weapon. He hasn’t seen the local wildlife, but he can hear it as he walks back towards the crash site, chirping and calling in the night. Something somewhere roars. It sounds big. It sounds close.

When Lars returns to the crater, stumbling unceremoniously down its side and dropping everything in his arms, Emerald has laid down. She’s convulsing, her physical form spasming sporadically. He knows only enough about gems to know that this is very, very bad.

“You okay?” Lars asks as he sits down beside her, arranging branches and bits of bush in front of them before selecting two skinny sticks and trying to remember how to start a fire with them. The wood is wet. He isn’t counting on much.

“Do I look like I’m okay, asshole?” Emerald scoffs. Even her voice shakes, but it’s somehow no less snide than usual.

“Just asking,” Lars retorts, redoubling his efforts to ignite a spark in his frustration. Emerald watches wearily with her one eye, then snorts when one of the sticks suddenly snaps into two. His irritation peaks and, snapping, he chucks them both into the pile and raises his voice at her. “You think you can do better?!”

Emerald blinks at him, unimpressed, then looks up at the trail of smoke still streaming through the air above them, dark even against the night sky. “Some of the debris is still on fire. Use it to light a branch on fire and bring it back here.”

A pronounced vein in Lars’ forehead throbs. “F-Fine,” he stammers as he rises to find the burning debris, waiting until he’s out of earshot before he thumps himself in the head with one hand, “Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why didn’t I think of that?”

When Lars returns, he holds the torch, burning sickly green, in his hand to the stack of wood and hopes for the best. To his surprise, it ignites right away, spreading slowly outward across the damp sticks and branches, until a veritable blaze stands before them.

“Look at that,” Emerald snarks, “My idea worked.”

Lars sits down beside her. “Do you ever shut up?”

Emerald laughs. “Certainly, but only when I’m in company worthy of my respect. Not some off-colored idiot who stole my ship and caused me to crash another. You better be glad my gem’s cracked, off-color, or I would have your neck by now.”

Lars snorts. “Sure you would.”

“You and I both know you wouldn’t stand a chance,” Emerald replies, “You can’t possibly be that naive.”

Lars looks at her from the corner of one eye. “Why don’t you get some rest, Emerald?”

Emerald sniggers, but rests her head on her outstretched forearms and obliges, her one eye closing as she indulges in a rare moment of sleep. She isn’t sniggering for long, though, because, within the hour, she’s trembling again, her form spasming with static. Her one eye pops open and rolls back in her head, showing only the white, while her mouth hangs open and helplessly drools until the episode passes.

Lars can’t help but feel bad for her, especially when the spasm passes but she continues to tremble, not from her cracked gem, but from the fear she claims not to feel. He knows she’s scared, whether she wants to admit it or not, and he knows what it feels like to be afraid the way she is right now. Cautiously, he reaches over and touches her head, fingers sinking into her mossy green hair.

Emerald doesn’t resist him. She lays there in silence and stares into the green depths of the campfire, a single tear escaping from the corner of her one eye to sink into the soil beneath her chin. Lars looks at her pityingly, then combs his fingers through her hair.

“Emerald?”

She looks at him.

“It’s okay to be afraid.”

Emerald looks away.

Lars smiles and continues to stroke her hair, until he leans back into the piece of debris behind them and slowly but surely drifts to sleep. He’s uneasy, awakening frequently throughout the night when he hears some unseen creature roar or when the fire crackles particularly loud, stoking it occasionally. It’s close to dawn when he gives up on sleeping, glancing over to find Emerald snoozing peacefully beside him. He’s taken for a moment with how vulnerable and sweet she looks, curled into a tight ball as if to make herself smaller, as if she just wants to disappear.

Lars reaches to touch her and she awakens with a spasm so violent that her eye rolls. It lasts no more than three seconds, but it shakes her to her core, tears leaking indignantly from that one green eye as she lays on her side and trembles.

Two fingers wipe the tears from her cheek. She glances up at Lars disbelievingly, wondering how he can possibly be so willing to not only help but comfort her. He says nothing, drying her tears and patting her head, then slowly getting to his feet.

“You’re sure there wasn’t a communicator on the ship?” Lars asks after awhile, stomping the fire out beneath his boots - her boots, stolen from her wardrobe aboard the Sun Incinerator.

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t certain,” Emerald replies, slowly sitting upright and clutching the right side of her head, her damaged gem sending shooting pain through her temple and up into her cranium. She grits her teeth, baring sharp fangs, as she slowly gets to her feet, staggering slightly before he catches her.

“Careful,” Lars tells her, “Where are we? You’ve gotta know this place better than I do.”

“This is well outside my sector,” Emerald retorts, “I have no idea where we are.”

“Oh, c’mon, you mean the Admiral Emerald has no idea what we should do? Aren’t you supposed to be super smart or something?” Lars wraps an arm around her waist to steady her, guiding her slowly towards the place where he exited and reentered the crater the night before. He isn’t hopeful for an escape or rescue at this point, but, if he’s stuck here, he at least wants to find a more comfortable shelter, away from whatever he had heard roaring in the jungle throughout the night.

Emerald doesn’t answer him, staring at the steep crater wall defeatedly. She doesn’t say anything, but he can tell she’s reluctant to climb it.

“I’ll climb up,” Lars suggests, “then reach down and get you, okay?”

Emerald shrugs. “Sure.”

Lars releases her waist, then heaves himself up the crater’s side. Emerald lifts an arm to shield herself from the shower of gravel and loose dirt he sends down after himself, then braces her feet on the crater wall and takes his gloved hands in hers as he reaches back for her, their combined efforts just enough to pull her up over the ragged cliff. But even this seems to exhaust her, her one eye going hazy as her form goes into another spell of glitching and spasming that leaves her gasping for breath when it finally passes.

This time, as he watches helplessly while she spasms, Lars hears a sound like cracking glass, her gem steady even as her physical form shakes with static. He squints hard and sees the crack getting bigger, ticking slowly up the length of her gem, tiny fissures spreading out from it. His heart sinks. She’s getting worse.

“You okay?” he hesitates to ask when the episode ends, reaching cautiously for her shoulder.

She swats his hand, already walking away. “I am anything but okay right now.”

Sighing, Lars follows after her. “I think we should find shelter. Somewhere safe to stay, while we wait for, uh…”

“For what? For someone to come and rescue us?” Emerald scoffs, then frowns, “Or did you mean while we wait for me to die?”

“D - Don’t say that!” Lars stammers, “You’re not gonna die!”

“You organics are always so hopeful,” Emerald remarks with a shake of her head, “You even hope for things that are impossible. Don’t waste your time trying to give me hope, too. I don’t believe in it.”

“Then, what do you believe in?” Lars scoffs.

“I don’t believe in anything,” Emerald says as she walks away, towards the jungle’s edge, “Not anymore.”

Reluctantly, Lars follows after her. “Jeez, lady, who hurt you?”

“For starters?” Pausing, Emerald looks back at him over her shoulder. “You. This is your fault, after all.”

“This is not…!” Lars stops. His face falls, his gaze drifting sullenly to the ground. Yes, it is. This is his fault. He impersonated an imperial officer to charm her, used that charm to steal her ship, and caused her no shortage of trouble with the Diamonds when they discovered that the Sun Incinerator had been stolen. And now, he had caused her to crash, to become stranded here on this strange jungle moon with no way to call for help when she so direly needed it. Suddenly, he feels glaringly responsible for her damaged gem.

If Emerald dies, would it be his fault, too?

“...I never meant for you to get hurt,” he tells her weakly. She snorts at him, then trudges on into the jungle, where the sheer scale of the noise is immediately deafening, insects trilling and chirping and birds calling and leaves rattling. Some unseen animal whoops at them as they pass through, but Emerald doesn’t stop to look around at all. She just keeps moving forward.

Lars stops when he spots a bush bearing tiny red berries. “Hey, wait a minute. I found us some food.”

“I don’t need to eat,” Emerald reminds him, but pauses long enough for him to pluck a few handfuls of the sweet fruit and empty them into his pockets. She cocks a brow as he pops a few into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, then swallowing. “You could have very well just poisoned yourself, you know. Though I hardly expect better from an off-color.”

Lars shrugs and pops a few more berries into his mouth. “Well, if I die, then you won’t have to deal with me anymore, so that’s a win for you. Want some?”

Emerald looks incredulous and offended. Lars laughs, then holds a juicy red fruit to her lips. “Open up. Eat. Live a little. Food is great.”

Her lips part reluctantly. He pops the berry into her mouth, then grins as she chews, prompting, “Good, isn’t it?”

She shrugs, her overstated shoulder pads rising and falling. “Give me another one.”

“Say please.”

She scoffs. “Fine. Please.”

Lars passes her a fistful of berries, smiling vaguely to himself as he watches her eat them from the corner of one eye, walking alongside her through the trees now. “Where are we going, huh? Do you even know, or are you just walking?”

“There were mountains on the other side of this forest,” Emerald replies, “You could see the outline of them over the treetops. Mountains mean caverns, yes? That would be a suitable shelter to curl up and die in.”

“Jeez, Emmy, you really are a total downer,” Lars remarks.

Emerald stops. “What did you just call me?”

“What? Emmy?”

“My name is Emerald. Admiral Emerald to you. I’ve been gracious to let you call me Emerald at all.”

Lars grins delightedly and practically skips past her. “Well, now I’m going to call you Emmy just to bug you.”

“Ugh,” Emerald groans, following after him and pausing only long enough to pop another berry into her mouth. They’re good, but she isn’t about to admit that to him.

“C’mon, Emmy,” Lars teases her, “Let’s go, before something big realizes we’re here and decides to eat us.”

Emerald rolls her eye and follows him. It takes them what feels like well over two hours to reach the other side of the rainforest, where the trees gradually give way to open plains filled with towering green grass and occasional ferns. It’s quieter here, but it’s no less humid than the jungle, a waterhole tucked beneath tropical-looking trees close by.

“This place is dangerous,” Emerald remarks, “We should pass through quickly.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lars replies, “I’m dying for a drink, and there’s water right there.”

Emerald shrugs. “Fine.”

Lars snaps a broad leaf off of a nearby sapling and walks over to the water’s edge, gazing into the crystalline depths for a moment before he dips the leaf in, using it to scoop up the water and bring it up to his lips hungrily. He quickly drains the makeshift vessel of its contents, then dips it into the water again for a second drink.

As Emerald watches him, the hair on the back of her neck starts to rise. Something’s wrong. Her one eye flickers across the plains, in search of something she instinctively knows is there, but sees nothing.

Then, Lars screams as some enormous crocodilian creature lurches towards him from the water’s depths, jaws two meters long snapping closed inches from his face. He scrambles backwards, staggering to his feet and running back towards her. Fortunately, the beast doesn’t follow him, unequipped for preying on anything past the water’s edge.

Emerald looks at him as he pants and heaves, on the verge of a panic attack at his near miss. “What did you learn, hmm?”

He glares at her.

“Always listen to Emerald,” she remarks, then starts in the direction of the nearby mountain range, the little hairs on the back of her neck still on edge. The crocodilian creature isn’t the only unseen danger here, she knows, but she doesn’t want to stick around to find out what nasty neighbors it might have, not in her state.

It’s another hour before the two of them reach the mountains and find a cavern to settle into. It’s cold inside, so Lars searches for firewood while Emerald sits down to rest, watching him warily from the mouth of the cave. She doesn’t trust him to survive on his own, but she doesn’t know why she cares if he doesn’t. It’s only fitting that the stupid off-color evade her for months on end, only to suffer some foolish fate while stranded on an unpopulated planet with no gem-based threats to speak of. He should probably be eaten alive by a carnivorous plant. And yet, here she is, keeping an eye on him until he returns sometime later with an armload of fortunately dry wood, beginning again his efforts to ignite a spark.

Two hours later, Emerald is laying quietly on the cavern floor with Lars’ cloak bundled underneath her head like a pillow, while a fire warms them and nighttime falls on the open plains that stretch as far as the eye can see outside the mouth of the cave. Outside, something bellows, something else screams as if in pain, and Emerald shudders.

“You cold?” Lars prompts, “You can have my shirt, if you want it.”

“No, I’m not cold,” Emerald remarks, “Gems aren’t fragile like you organics. We don’t get cold.”

“Just asking,” Lars replies.

Emerald sits upright and looks at him. “Why are you being nice to me? Is it because you think it will change something? You think that we’ll become friends and then I’ll forget that you ever stole my Sun Incinerator and singlehandedly ruined my reputation?”

Lars sighs. “No, Emerald, I’m being nice because...it’s just nice to be nice sometimes. You ever think about that?”

“I am nice, you miserable off-colored idiot,” Emerald retorts.

He cocks a brow at her. “Wow, really? Didn’t notice.”

“I’m an aristocrat, off-color. Aristocrats pride themselves on hospitality and charisma and social skills. You were quite taken with me at the Cosmic Jubilee, weren’t you? Or were you just leading me on so you could, I don’t know, steal my ship?”

Lars hadn’t wanted to think about the Cosmic Jubilee. It had been as much of a fiasco for him as it had been for Emerald. He had waltzed in, dressed from head-to-toe in a stolen uniform to disguise himself as an imperial garnet, and danced and flirted with her for hours, pressing chaste kisses to her cheeks and whispering sweet nothings in her ear and pretending to be completely smitten with her while his crew boarded her nearby ship. And then, when he had received their signal, he ditched her and stole the Sun Incinerator. He had felt bad about it then and felt worse about it now, realizing more and more everyday that perhaps he shouldn’t have chosen the largest vessel there, knowing that it must have belonged to someone equally as impressive.

“I’m sorry,” Lars retorts, “I didn’t mean to break your heart. Didn’t realize you were so into me.”

Emerald scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself, off-color. The only time my heart has ever been broken was when I realized that my Sun Incinerator had been stolen.”

“Why’s the ship mean so much to you, anyways?” Lars asks, “I mean, I’ve seen Homeworld’s fleets. You have like a million ships to choose from. Why’s it gotta be this one?”

“The Sun Incinerator is Homeworld’s fastest vessel. It’s equipped with enough weaponry to incinerate some small colonies,” Emerald sighs, her knees to her chest as she chews on her lower lip anxiously, “but, the Sun Incinerator matters to me because...she’s mine. She was a rusted hull when I found her, an ancient relic abandoned on some lost cause of a colony. I polished and cleaned and refurbished her myself. I repaired her engine and upgraded her machinery and added the Nova Thrusters. The Diamonds were impressed with her. And when I fought and won my first battles in that ship, they were impressed with me, too. Sunny is...important to me.”

“Sunny? You have a nickname for your ship?” Lars frowns. “So, this is more about feeling worthy to your alien overlords or whoever than anything. You just wanna feel important, and you feel like you’re not important anymore because you lost the ship.”

“I’m always important, I’m an emerald,” she retorts, “But the Sun Incinerator made me the Emerald. Besides, she’s valuable as a military vessel. More valuable than I am on my own. The Diamonds have already told me that I’ll recover their precious ship if I value my life. To not only lose one of their most valuable vessels, but to lose it to rebels? Unforgivable. I’ve lost my luster. And gems that lose their luster aren’t worth keeping. But...I guess none of that matters now, because this moon is where I’ll die. The crack’s getting bigger, isn’t it?”

Lars listens to her and hates himself. “So, I...not only took the thing that mattered most to you, but ruined your reputation, too…”

“You certainly did, off-color. Only fitting that you take my life, too.”

“Emerald, I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t answer him. She doesn’t care if he’s sorry. Sorry won’t fix the mess she’s in now; she either dies here from her damaged gem or she makes a miraculous escape and is shattered at the hands of the Diamonds for her repeated failure to reclaim their ship and then monumental destruction of another.

“It...doesn’t have to be this way,” Lars tells her, “You could just leave, you know. You could...uh, come with us! You would have your ship back!”

“You think it’s that easy, off-color? Just turn my back on Homeworld and expect to never see the consequences? You think the Diamonds wouldn’t hunt us down and personally shatter us all?”

“It won’t be easy, Emerald,” Lars replies, “It’s never easy. But, wouldn’t it be better than this? I mean, it sounds to me like you’ve only ever lived to serve your Diamonds, and now they’re threatening to kill you because of a mistake that, let’s face it, wasn’t even your fault. If you’ve given your entire life to them, shouldn’t they care at least a little more about you? I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’re...you’re worth more than what you were made for, Emmy. You’re not just here to be an emerald. You’re here to be Emerald. And I think Emerald shouldn’t have to die because I messed up, but I don’t think I should have to die for stealing a ship to help my friends, either. Nobody should have to die. Do you...understand?”

Emerald shakes her head and chuckles. “You organics and your silly hope.”

“C’mon, Emmy. Come with us.”

“Say I agree to come with you,” Emerald remarks, “Where exactly are we going? We’re trapped here, remember?”

“My crew will find us. I know they will.”

“How can you have so much faith in them? They have literally no idea where we are,” she scoffs.

“I have faith in them because I trust them. They’re like family.” Lars gives her a wry sideways smile. “You know anything about family?”

“Gems don’t have families. Gems barely have friends.”

“Sounds like a miserable life to me.”

“Gem life is inherently miserable, off-color. Even the Diamonds are miserable. We’re created with a purpose, we fulfill that purpose for as long as we can, and, when we no longer have purpose, we’re shattered and someone shinier and newer replaces us.”

“But, it doesn’t have to be like that, does it? I’m giving you a choice, Emerald. Must be overwhelming, I know. Sounds like no one’s ever given you a choice before.” He smiles at her, cocking a brow. “You wanna just be another emerald? Or do you wanna be Emerald?”

Emerald shakes her head, but surprises him with the first smile he’s ever seen her wear. It’s a genuine smile, her lips skipping up over shiny white fangs for a hot second before slipping back down. “You’re impossible.”

“Hey, Emerald?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you let yourself just be whoever you are?”

She snorts. “If you sing, I’m going to throw up.”

“Maybe you should think about it,” Lars tells her, “and think about why you’re loyal to the Diamonds when they’re clearly not loyal to you.”

“I don’t have to think about it,” Emerald replies too quickly, “I already know why.”

“Okay, why?”

The fire casts sullen shadows that flicker and tremble on her thin face, accentuating her high cheekbones and the hollows under her cracked gem and one eye and emphasizing just how exhausted she seems. He can see in that one green eye that her mind is a million miles away.

“Emmy, why?” Lars repeats.

“Because it’s what I was made for.”

Lars frowns, then retrieves his captain’s cloak from where it’s still bundled on the cavern floor, unfolds it, and drapes it around her shoulders. “Get some rest, Emmy.”

“Stop calling me that,” Emerald retorts, “and I’ve already told you, I don’t need to sleep.”

“You don’t have to sleep. Just rest.”

The unseen creature in the night wails again. Emerald looks to the mouth of the cavern and frowns. “I don’t believe it’s wise for either of us to rest tonight, off-color.”

Lars looks at her. “You’re worried about what’s out there, huh? I thought there was no reason for you to worry. I mean, you’re practically indestructible, aren’t you?”

“I would be, if I weren’t cracked,” she replies, “Being cracked changes everything, off-color. You’re slower, weaker, more vulnerable. If you poof, you can’t reform. You’re trapped within the confines of your gem forever, but it isn’t like being shattered. Because if you’re shattered, you’re gone, really and truly gone. But, if you’re cracked and can’t reform, you’re still in there. You’re awake, aware, conscious. You know that you’re trapped, alone with just your thoughts to keep you company forever. You can’t feel the things going on around you in the outside world. You can’t sense, can’t feel, can’t speak, can’t call out for someone to help you. You’re just...there.”

“Wow,” Lars remarks, smiling faintly, “You’re a real poet, Emmy.”

Emerald scoffs. “It’s a fate worse than death. I would rather that thing, whatever it is, just shatter me. At least when you’re shattered, you don’t suffer.”

“You talk about it a lot,” he comments, “You think about it a lot? About dying?”

“Death is the ultimate reality of every gem’s existence. We live only long enough to satisfy our Diamonds. And then our purpose comes to a close, and our lives with it. We aren’t like you organics. We don’t dread it. We don’t fear it. We just...accept it for what it is, and hope that we can make some difference while we’re here.”

“Oh, really? Because it sounds to me like you’re pretty worried about it,” Lars replies, “That’s all you’ve talked about, the whole time we’ve been stuck here. Death and dying and being shattered.”

“Because I know it’s my time, off-color,” Emerald says, “I’m cracked. I’m weak. I’ve outlived the purpose which I served to my Diamonds. There’s no use in having hope for myself, when I should be accepting my fate. I’ve lived a lovely life, you know.”

“Really? Because your life sounds pretty damn awful to me,” he scoffs, then stokes the fire with a stick and sends up a plume of sparks, “What was so great about it?”

Emerald opens her mouth, thinks for a moment, and closes it. Twice more, she opens her mouth, but she never speaks, until she finally replies, “I...I was recognized for my greatness by the Diamonds themselves. I was a great captain to many fine soldiers on many fine ships. I was respected. The gems who outlive me will speak of me in high regard.”

Lars looks at her pityingly. “You ever fall in love?”

Emerald wheezes. “Love? Ha!”

“You ever have friends? You ever think about family? You ever just stop and appreciate that some things are just living and you’re living and that’s beautiful?”

“Do I seem like the type to stop and smell the organic botanical forms?” she scoffs.

“Maybe you should sometime. They’re beautiful, too.” He smiles faintly, then looks at her. “Death’s not so bad, you know. I did it once. Died, I mean.”  
Emerald looks at him incredulously. “Strange, you’re the liveliest corpse I’ve ever seen.”

He shrugs. “Special circumstances, you can say. It wasn’t so bad, though. It was quiet, peaceful, a little warm. But, you know what’s better than dying? Living.”

“Don’t get philosophical on me, off-color.”

“I think you’re afraid to live a little, but I think you’re even more afraid of death.”

“I’m not afraid. Emeralds don’t feel fear. Emeralds don’t fear death.”

“Emmy…” She recoils when his fingers lace with hers, but doesn’t jerk away, at least not right away. He offers her another smile, so welcoming and warm on his organic face, a face so much rounder and softer than her sharp, angular features. There’s no real color to his eyes, she notices as she meets his gaze, his irises just inky dark around his pupils, but warm nonetheless. There’s a dampness to his eyes, a tenderness to his gaze, a beauty in him that she’s never seen before. Homeworld had warned her about this, about organic life and how, if you gazed at it too fondly for too long, you would surely fall victim to its cunning charm, the very same way that Rose Quartz did.

Lars squeezes her hand as she looks away. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

“It’s never okay to be afraid. Fear is weakness and weakness won’t be tolerated.”

Quiet moments pass between them. Lars doesn’t know what to say at first. Then, he finally speaks up, “You remind me of me, y’know.”

She scoffs. “How can I possibly remind you of yourself? I’m an emerald. You’re not only an organic, but an off-color. We couldn’t be more different.”

“There’s more to us than class, Emmy. There’s more to everybody but class, you know,” Lars sighs, “I...used to be afraid, too. I’m still afraid. But, I used to be afraid of being afraid, just like you. I was so worried about what everybody else thought of me, that I didn’t take the time to notice what I thought of myself. There were so many people in my life that I took for granted. There were so many things I missed out on, all because I was afraid to just...be myself. And it took me getting abducted by aliens and dying to realize how much I appreciated living. I’m still afraid. There’s nothing about this - right here, right now - that isn’t scary. But I’m not afraid to be afraid. Do you...understand?”

“I...think there’s a lot about you that I don’t understand, off-color.”

Lars squeezes her hand. “Let me help you, Emmy. I want to help you, but you have to let me. If you really think that you have to die here, then let’s make the best of the time you have left. Let’s talk. Let’s have fun. Let’s be friends.”

“Friends…” Emerald shakes her head, but smiles. “Gems don’t have friends.”

“Aww, Emmy has no friends,” Lars teases her, “Is that why you miss your ship so much? Need Sunny to keep you company?”

“Gems don’t have friends because it’s easier to lose colleagues when you’re not attached to them. I used to have friends. I learned the hard way.” Emerald’s tone is harsh. He knows he’s hit a sore spot, so he stops.

“Sorry,” he tells her after a moment. Emerald just nods, then looks away, releases his hand, and sighs wearily, drawing his cloak tighter around her shoulders. She isn’t cold, but the weight of it brings her comfort, the way she supposes a hug might feel. She wants to be quiet now. She doesn’t like how he talks, how he questions things, how he makes her question things. There are too many thoughts in her head right now, thoughts that she knows she shouldn’t be having, not even now. It prompts her physical form to hiccup, spasming briefly before it settles down.

Then, another roar crashes through the quiet and Emerald jolts to attention.

“That sounded close,” Lars remarks.

“We shouldn’t have come here,” Emerald laments, “I suppose it’s too late for us to leave, at least not without whatever that thing is seeing us.”

“Let’s make a run for it,” Lars decides, “Better to get caught out in the open than wind up cornered in here.”

Emerald nods. “Alright.”

Neither extinguishes the campfire, in the fragile hope that whatever lurks in the darkness will be more drawn to it than to them, venturing quietly away from the mouth of the cavern and into the night. The grasslands are still, the way they only are when a predator is present and the wildlife is afraid. Not even the insects call as Lars leads Emerald into the darkness, following along the edge of the cave system as quietly as they can.

Emerald hears something moving in the grass. She shoves Lars hard, whispering urgently, “Go. Run.”

Something unseen crashes after them as Lars and Emerald break into a run. Emerald’s gem ignites in bright white light as she tries to summon her weapon, but the cracks and fissures spiderwebbing across its surface stop the longsword from emerging. With no weapon to fight with, she has no choice but to run.

The two of them run and run until Lars’ lungs ache and burn and Emerald’s form starts to spasm, but still, the unseen creature pursues them, the overgrown grass rattling behind them, the quiet night punctuated with their panting and the occasional snarl. Emerald’s seizures become more and more frequent as she overexerts herself and she knows that she’s moments from an eternity ensnared in her own damaged gem, assuming the monstrosity doesn’t just crush her, when she glances up from her own tired feet and sees a structure in the distance. It stands out from the mountains and the trees because of its domed roof, something distinctly artificial standing in stark contrast to the jungle.

“There! Go!” Emerald cries as she shoves Lars in its general direction, then bends double as she heaves, her form spasming so violently that her jaw snaps open with a splatter of saliva on reflex and her one eye rolls in her head. Lars sees her struggle, turns around, and throws her over his shoulder with strength she didn’t expect from an organic. The creature is close behind them, so close, in fact, that when Lars ducks down to avoid the door frame as he slides wildly into the structure, it slams blindly into the entry behind him, where it stops short and snarls as if in frustration.

Hanging limply over his shoulder, Emerald’s vision clears from her most recent seizure just in time for her to catch a glimpse of the horrible beast. It’s twice as large as she expected, far too large to squeeze through the doorway after them, and as dark as the night. With Lars carrying her farther and farther away, its shape becomes less and less clear, but she doesn’t miss the frightening glint of its vicious white teeth in the moonlight, in jaws two meters long and nearly half as wide. She shudders at the thought of what cruel fate might have befallen her a moment prior, if Lars hadn’t carried her.

Suddenly, it strikes her that Lars had carried her. He had willingly placed himself in harm’s way, slowing himself down potentially enough for the horrible fanged beast to catch both of them, to help her. She knows only enough about organic life to know that his kind gets terribly attached to things, sometimes enough to blindly protect them, even at one’s own expense. But she hardly thought another emerald would have been willing to do the same.

“You...didn’t have to do that,” Emerald tells him as he sets her down, his breath coming in wheezy pants as he bends double with his hands on his knees. He glances up at her questioningly, too winded to speak. “You didn’t have to carry me. You could have left me. You still would have escaped either way.”

Lars catches his breath enough to address her. “Jeez, Emmy, are you ever grateful for anything?”

“I am grateful,” Emerald replies incredulously, “But I didn’t think you would...do that, not for me.”

“Emmy, you’re messed up in the head if you think I would’ve just left you,” Lars informs her with a shake of his head, “No one deserves that. Not even you.”

“I’ve seen it countless times before, you know. Soldiers who abandon their colleagues and leave them to die to spare their own lives, if only for a moment more. I don’t think a single gem on Homeworld would have done that, not even for me.”

Lars looks at her. “We’re not on Homeworld, and I’m not a gem. Lucky for you, I guess.”

He starts to walk away.

“Thank you.”

Lars stops, then glances back over his shoulder with a devilish grin. “I’ll be damned.”

Emerald looks at him, confused. She can only scarcely see him in the inky blackness inside the structure, beneath its solid roof, but she can make out enough of his expression that she knows it isn’t good. “What?”

“You actually said thank you,” Lars scoffs, “to me!”

This time, Emerald smiles, too, following along behind him as he ventures farther into the building. They’re in a corridor, littered with debris from the crumbling ceiling and falls, and both of them are stumbling and feeling their way with their fingertips along the far wall. “You might be an off-color and a wanted criminal and a horrible thief,” she informs him, “but I can’t deny that you’re the most foolishly selfless and brave creature I’ve ever met. Something like that deserves my thanks.”

Lars whistles. It echos hollowly off the walls. “High praise.”  
Emerald shakes her head, then stops when she realizes what’s ahead of them, the corridor opening up into a bright room brilliantly lit by starlight beneath a domed glass ceiling. “Lars.”

“Hmm?”

“Look!” Emerald momentarily forgets that she shouldn’t overexert herself and runs past him, her metaphorical heart swelling with relief when she sees a towering white throne set before a levitating computer screen and a control panel overgrown with vines and leaves. “Look, Lars! This must have been a gem colony! We can call for help from here!”

Lars bounds over to her, grinning excitedly. “Need a boost?”

“Yes, please,” Emerald agrees, then giggles girlishly as he holds her waist and hoists her up, high enough for her to touch the screen. It flickers for a moment, then slowly comes to life, flashing white. Then, the Great Diamond Authority’s familiar four-colored insignia appears onscreen. Emerald presses the individual diamonds in the passcode that unlocks the screen, then scrolls through the available options until she sees the Sun Incinerator.

Rhodonite answers the transmission. “H - Hello?”

Lars sets Emerald down, then scrambles up onto the control pad, his head barely high enough to see the screen. “Rho! It’s me!”

“Captain?!” Rhodonite gasps disbelievingly, “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“We’re fine, but we need you guys to come pick us up! Transmitting our coordinates now!” Lars presses the button to send the Sun Incinerator the base’s location, grinning delightedly.

“We?” Rhodonite prompts, cocking a brow.

Lars smiles, shrugging helplessly. “I’ll explain when you get here! Hurry!”

“Yes, Captain!”

The transmission ends. The screen fades to black. Lars slides down from the control panel, where Emerald waits for him on the floor, beside the towering throne that could have only belonged to a Diamond.

“You ready, Emmy?” Lars prompts, “We’re outta here!”

Emerald smiles faintly and nods. “I suppose we are…”

He frowns. “What’s wrong?”

Emerald turns away from him, hugging herself tightly. “It’s...so easy for you, isn’t it? Even after all of this, everything goes back to normal for you…”

“Emmy…”

“I’m no less cracked than I was this morning,” Emerald reminds him, and he thinks he hears her sniffle, “and I’m no less shattered when the Diamonds find me.”

Lars reaches for her shoulder, surprised when she turns around to face him and he finds her one eye full of tears. “You ever realize how small and insignificant and alone you are? You ever feel...lonely? Even when you’re with people?”

She rushes into his chest and he wraps his arms around her, frowning as she sniffles and sobs into the collar of his cloak, clutching gently at the fabric of his shirt. Her physical form wobbles and she erupts into full-blown tears, streaming down her cheek to drip from her chin in great big glistening beads, looking so sullenly beautiful in the pale starlight.

“I’m afraid…,” Emerald whispers when the worst of her tears have passed, “I’m afraid!”

Lars squeezes her tighter, then looks over his shoulder at the skylight when he hears the familiar sonic boom of something large entering the atmosphere, relieved when he sees the Sun Incinerator soaring overhead. “C’mon, Emmy. I know somewhere where you’ll be safe,” he tells her, holding her hand and leading her along, back through the darkness of the corridor and into the quiet night beyond, where the Sun Incinerator has now alighted alongside the abandoned base, “I have a friend who can help with your gem, you know. You won’t be cracked for long. Just hold on. You’ll see.”

Emerald releases his hand and hesitates when he starts to board the ship. She looks at him, then looks away, chewing anxiously on her lower lip and plucking at one elbow. Her form glitches again.

“Emmy.”

Emerald looks at him. His hand is outstretched towards her in a silent offer.

Lars smiles. “C’mon, Emmy. You know you want to. Hey, look who it is! It’s Sunny! You two can be together again! Best friends, reunited at last!”

Emerald tries to smile, but falters and tears up again instead.

Lars frowns when he hears her sniffle. “Emerald, the Diamonds won’t find you, not with us. We’re on a course to earth, you know, and on earth, you can be anything you want. You don’t have to be Admiral Emerald anymore. You can just be...Emmy.”

She looks at him, unsure. “I’m...I’m afraid.”

The smile returns to his soft features as he offers her his hand a second time. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

She hesitates for a moment more, then takes his hand. Together, the two of them board the Sun Incinerator, Emerald and her captain.


End file.
